Ellen Powell Tiberino (1937–1992) was an African American visual artist, who was figurative and expressionist in her pastels, oils, pencil drawings and sculptures.

Her works were infused with the experiences and history of Black people, women in particular, whom she most often painted in dark and haunting hues.

[11] Tiberino received a City of Philadelphia scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and arrived there in 1956.

[6] Tiberino had been preceded at PAFA by a handful of Black students in the 20th century - Laura Wheeler Waring, Morris Blackburn, Raymond Saunders and Louis B. Sloan.

[5][13][14] She remained in that city for six years, returning to Philadelphia to marry Joseph Tiberino, whom she had met at a going-away party for her NY move back in 1961.

[17] She was a figurative, stylized expressionistic artist who produced oils, pastels, pencil drawings and bas-relief sculptures.

[5] Among her subjects were young girls becoming aware of their bodies, Black women in pregnancy and motherhood, neighborhood people expressing joy and sorrow, African American life and strife, and her Catholic faith.

Some were people on West Philadelphia street corners, inside New York speakeasies, participating in Sunday High Mass and Baptist funerals.

Her first painting after the diagnosis was "The Operation," c. 1980, a busy scene of doctors and nurses surrounding a sick patient as Death awaits alongside them.

Tiberino's most controversial work was a collaboration with Joseph of a seven-foot relief sculpture depicting their interpretation of the MOVE bombing in 1985, which led to the deaths of five children & six adults in Philadelphia.

The sculpture—titled "The MOVE Confrontation," created in 1986—depicted people engulfed in flames, Mayor W. Wilson Goode, a Death mask and horrified spectators.

[19] They created an artistic compound of houses and structures in Powelton Village in West Philadelphia where they decorated the walls with paintings, murals, relief sculptures and other artwork.

[3][6][33][34] Even before the compound, Tiberino and Joseph had converted a drugstore in Powelton Village called "The Building" for workshops led by artists and for group shows.

[35] Over the years, she taught art classes in the community, at her son Raphael's school, at her home on Saturdays and at one point, at her studio.

[14][18][34][36] In 1991, she exhibited with Joseph, their son Raphael and four other artists at Galerie Nadeau as members of the Rambla Group, which also included Earl Wilkie.

It hosts exhibits and offers a space for friends, artists and neighbors to drop in to discuss their art or to just hang out.

In 1960, the Citizens Service Committee sponsored an exhibit at a home to show off the city's young Black artists and their contributions to the art world.

[44] She participated in a show at the Lynn Kottler Gallery in 1963 that featured oil paintings titled "Two Figures" and "Poochie," which "are attracting much comment", the New York Amsterdam News reported.

[46] Three years later, she was among young Black artists and students chosen to exhibit at William Penn Memorial Museum in Harrisburg by the mayor's Committee on Human Relations.

Others included Moe Brooker, Barbara Bullock, Walter Edmonds, Charles Pridgen, Percy Ricks, Leroy Johnson, John Simpson, Maurice Thompkins, Gwendolyn Joyce Daniels and Tina Lloyd King.

It included works by some of the country's top artists, including Horace Pippin, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Jacob Lawrence, Benny Andrews, Roland Ayers, Romare Bearden, Avel de Knight, Barkley Hendricks, Paul Keene, Raymond Saunders, Louis B. Sloan, Ed Wilson, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Joshua Johnson.

[56] In 1977, Tiberino was the first artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum, showing more than 40 paintings and drawings.

Her paintings and drawings with their soft, dark blustery lines strike the viewer with an immediate sense of the subject's physical and spiritual integrity.

Other artists featured were Moe Brooker, Walter Edmonds, James Dupree, Nanette Carter, Deryl Daniel Mackie and Charles Searles.

[57] In 1992, she was represented in an exhibit of 19th and 20th-century African American artists at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which featured works from its collection and on loan.

Titled "Works by African Americans," the museum exhibit also included Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Paul Keene, Howardena Pindell, Betty Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Bill Traylor, William Hawkins, William Edmondson, Rev.

[14] The Free Library exhibit featured prints by Delaware Valley Black artists from its collection, including Dox Thrash, Claude Clark, Samuel J.

Brown Jr., Raymond Steth, Roland Ayers, Benjamin Britt, Reba Dickerson Hill, Tom McKinney, Columbus Knox, Dressler Smith, Cal Massey, Howard N. Watson, Joseph Holston and Sam Byrd.

In 2007, Sande Webster Gallery produced "The Tiberino Family: A Legacy of Art," which included Joseph, and children, Raphael, Ellen and Gabriel.

[37] In 2013, the African American Museum in Philadelphia told the story of the family and its connection to the city and the Black community.